99% of the time saying “talking points” like “optics”, “bad look”, “carrying water” means the person is spewing BS.
And “a bother”? What does that mean? Of course it sucks. You think your posting somehow demonstrates that man you really think it sucks, you think that really really hard?
looking forward to years and years of no one ever being held accountable. obama should have prosecuted those involved in the Iraq War. if biden is elected he’ll just forgive every crime that the previous administration did and get back to business electing republicans. enjoy your criminal state, you could have had a real one
I think you can make a good case that Bernie is not a good candidate. He’s too honest. I’ve never once said he’s a good candidate or that he was ever more likely than not to win the nomination. Voters suck on average in both parties.
I have reasons why I think he has a better shot in the general than Biden, but I also have never claimed to be unbiased.
But “he couldn’t beat Hillary/Biden” is not a strong argument in the real world after you look at the detail.
That’s not really what happened. It’s more that 4/5 or whatever of people 35 and under decided they didn’t care enough to vote. Everybody knew months ago that a coalition of 10 million plus older/minority voters would vote for somebody not named Bernie Sanders. What we didn’t know is that Sanders would fail to build a 13 million plus coalition of young voters, progressives and skeptics of traditional democrats. That’s what he tried to do, but he failed pretty badly at it. Turnout for 35 and under was well down from the 08 primaries and 18 midterms. If we had known that in Dec it would have been pretty easy to predict that Bernie would have no shot by the end of March.
He’s perfectly adequate at lying and spinning things to benefit him…probably better than Obama was in 08. If for no other reason than he’s been doing this for 30+ years. Like he did a good job imo lying about why he voted for the crime bill. His contemporaneous statements are well in line with dem orthodoxy of the time but he’s convinced a lot of people that he voted for it despite the things he was initially praising it for. That’s pretty good politicking.
I think his biggest weakness is probably one on one retail politics. Making individual, personal connections with different types of people of various backgrounds. Incidentally, that might be Biden’s biggest (only?) strength. I’ve heard of other dems not personally liking Clinton, Obama, Warren, Sanders etc but Biden seems to get along with everyone. Sanders apparently likes Biden because Joe was nice to him back when Bernie had no national profile and you hear stories like this about him regularly
Bernie spoke out at length before Congress on the crime bill in 1994. Pretty sure you’re full of shit, but maybe I’ll look into your CNN piece at some point.
You can also find the video of his speech before congress and see all of it in context. But, it’s been posted a lot and I’m sure you’ve already seen it.
I’m only claiming his view at the time was pretty mainstream dem in the 90s and not at all how dems talk about crime and prison reform now. He voted for the bill and thought that more jails and harsher punishments were part of the solution. I don’t see why his speech matters when the CNN article quotes him saying exactly that. I mean, good for him if he’s convinced a bunch of people he’s always hated the fact that the bill included more jails and harsher punishments. That’s why I thought he was a good enough politician to win earlier in this race. Being able to shit the narrative to a favorable light is a crucial skill for someone wanting to be president after a lietime in politics.
Hope not. But if he does I won’t ignore the systemic problem responsible in favor of the “bad candidate” narrative that so many seem so comfortable holding on to.
Is a candidate that runs up the popular vote score in the North East and on the West Coast but loses the swing states a bad candidate in the current EC system?